


Solve for Ex

by on_the_wing



Series: The Absence of Monsters [6]
Category: Starfighter (Comic)
Genre: Angst, Badly-timed jokes, Confusing Sexy Feelings, M/M, Movie Night, Past Abuse, confusing feelings, imaginary bondage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-06-06 11:15:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15193586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/on_the_wing/pseuds/on_the_wing
Summary: Praxis wants to take Deimos on a date. Deimos has an unexpectedly violent reaction.





	Solve for Ex

**Author's Note:**

> Okay I give up. There was supposed to be another story before this one, with black market knife shopping and fight scenes and wacky hijinks and maybe a bit of closet sex, but that goddamn story just does not want to be written and it’s been what, over a year now? So I’m just going to post this one, even though it happens a couple weeks later. 
> 
> It’s all Deimos POV this time. As usual, Marsh = Praxis, Skala = Deimos. They’re still on the transport to base (I decided it’s way out in the ass end of nowhere because I want to prolong this trip, yes I am terrible) and have not yet been given task names, so they gave each other nicknames. If you want to know why those particular nicknames, you’ll have to read the earlier stories!

We’re watching a movie on his laptop, something that was new when we left the colonies so I bet it’s expensive to rent. Marsh got me to admit I’d never been on a date, said he wanted to take me on one even though that’s impossible on this stupid shuttle, so this is the next best thing. The idea seems a little silly to me—why dress up sex with random consumables?—but whatever, why not, if it makes him happy.  
  
And it’s pretty nice so far. He bribed his roommate to stay away for the night and somehow found us a bottle of red wine and a bar of real Earth chocolate, the bitter kind with a rich, dark, wild smell that you just want to suck up and roll around in. He dragged his mattress down to the floor and now we’re sprawled across it, Marsh sitting with his back to the wall, me cuddled up between his legs with my back to him, the laptop on the desk chair in front of us so we don’t have to crunch our necks bending down to look at it.  
  
We feed each other bits of chocolate, licking each other’s fingers a little more than is strictly necessary, and pass the bottle back and forth in a leisurely way, because we’re not really looking to get drunk. Marsh is a total fucking pansy, or possibly thinks that I am, so he also insisted on a water bottle, and I take occasional swigs from it when he nudges me.  
  
The movie—a film adaptation of an epic fantasy novel we read when we were kids—is pretty good too, at least until it gets to the long travel montage with the tiny figures slowly toiling through monumental Earth landscapes. It’s lavishly, almost irritatingly pretty, so much so that my brain can’t handle it and I start to fidget and stretch.  
  
Marsh gets his hand under my shirt and rubs warm circles into my midriff, up my ribs, over my chest. I hum and instinctively arch my back, pushing forward for more. He lifts me up onto his lap and I tip my head to the side so he can press hot kisses into my neck. My breath is coming fast and fluttery and I’m thinking about pausing the movie, imagining leaning forward on my hands and knees to do it, and how he might pull my pants down and—I whimper and grind into him. His hand moves down, slides under my waistband…and suddenly I’m scrambling up, running into the bathroom and slamming the door behind me.  
  
I lean against it, shaking and breathless, absurdly convinced that he’s about to crash through it and get to me. That’s stupid. Marsh wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t. I suck in a long ragged breath, push it out.  
  
“Skala? What’s wrong? Are you okay?” Marsh’s voice comes through the door instead of his body, too close. He’s right next to me, only a couple inches of metal separating us. The name sounds strange and stupid and overly intimate. I want to hide from it, hide from him. I feel stupid. I feel wrong. I bang at the door once, trying to scare him away with the noise as if he were a cat.  
  
“Are you—do you need me to do anything?”  
  
I draw in a deep hissing breath. “Need. Alone.”  
  
“Sorry. I couldn’t understand you.”  
  
“Need to—be alone and think.”  
  
A moment of silence. “All right. I’ll be back at the laptop if you need me. Okay?”  
  
I feel the impulse to knock on the door to acknowledge, but he probably wouldn’t understand. I gather up my breath again, and croak, “Okay.”  
  
I hear his footsteps receding, and slide down to slump on the floor. What the fuck. What is wrong with me?  
  
I concentrate on breathing first. I remind myself that I’m safe. No one is in this bathroom with me. No one is outside but Marsh and he went away when I asked. And he’s guarding the room from anyone outside. Am I really alone in the bathroom, though? I jump up and turn on the light to check. Yep, alone. I slide down to the floor again. Hmm. Something about being on the floor, I don’t like. I get up again, go sit on the toilet.  
  
Why. Why am I reacting like this? It’s not like Marsh hasn’t touched me before. I like it when he does that, I always like it. I like it far too much, actually, so much it’s going to get me in trouble. So much that I spend ~~most of~~ a lot of my time daydreaming about it when I’m away from him.  
  
Was it that I didn’t expect it? I do usually start it, or tell him to do it. But not always. And he was doing it slowly, so I had time to react and respond.  
  
What happened? Let’s go back and think ( _this is stupid this is stupid_ ). We were watching a movie. We were on a “date,” even though I don’t know how it can be a date if the point of a date is that you go out and do something in public that isn’t sex.  
  
Maybe that is a little scary, Marsh trying to date me. I’m not ready, I want it but I don’t want it, what if I’m terrible at it, I probably am terrible at it because all I know how to do is fuck and hide and watch people from the shadows. And stab them, if need be. And let’s not even get into how I’ve been lying to Him, and sneaking around, and what is going to happen when we get to base and get navigators and our lives suddenly become regimented and monitored fuck fuck fuck this isn’t helping.  
  
Concentrate. It can’t be the date thing. I was doing fine until he started touching me. That should have been the part that _wasn’t_ upsetting. It’s the part that’s familiar, the part I know how to do. And I liked it, up until the moment I had to bolt. I wanted more.  
  
_I wanted more_. I know, suddenly, what it was. But what it was makes no sense.  
  
I was half-expecting to dredge up some flushed-away trauma from the sewers of my unconscious, something really vile and upsetting, maybe involving my stepfather even though I don’t remember him doing anything like that to me. But all I’m left with is a generic string of scenes that I never forgot, never had a reason to forget. If you’d asked me, I would have said they were fond memories, even if they were a little trashy.  
  
What I mean, of course, is Luka, my second not-boyfriend. You might expect some scary memories from Andrei, the first, and I have quite a few, but they’re all very straightforward and have nothing to do with this. Well, except the bit about the door, maybe. Andrei was not fond of being shut out.  
  
Anyway, Luka. I call him my not-boyfriend because I don’t know what else to call him. A regular hookup? A fuckbuddy? He wouldn’t even call it that, I bet. For him it wasn’t about the sex so much as about chilling on the weekend; getting away from his stressful job, his demanding girlfriend, his big loud family. He liked that I didn’t talk, he said that once. He said it was relaxing.  
  
He needed more than just quiet to get fully relaxed, though. He needed his full routine. We’d start out on the couch watching cartoons, have a couple beers, order takeout, and take some pills (mostly him). Then we’d lie around on the floor stuffing our faces (mostly me) and try to make sense of the nonsensical until we gave up and laughed at it. Luka had some pretty weird theories about what was going on in those shows, although I think he wasn’t serious about most of them.  
  
And then there was my contribution, as I thought of it sometimes. Because it was his place and he always paid for everything. I mean, I would have done it anyway—when he first picked me up that morning in the park I thought “cartoons and chill” was a euphemism—but I felt a certain obligation to make it good because of that.  
  
Afterwards I would make off with the leftovers and often a ~~few~~ couple things from his fridge or pantry or liquor cabinet. He never said anything about it. I don’t know if it was because it was okay with him or because he didn’t notice. His kitchen was like a fucking miniature grocery store—I wonder if it was him or his girlfriend who did the shopping. I never met her, although he had a framed picture of the two of them up on a shelf. She had to work on Saturdays; as a matter of fact, he eventually stopped inviting me over because she changed her schedule to match his and wanted to spend time with him on the weekends. He looked glum about that, let me tell you. He even hugged me goodbye.  
  
So why am I so disturbed? I _wanted_ Luka to touch me. He was cute and friendly, and even before he got high he moved and spoke in a slow calm way that made me feel safe. And the sex was fun, usually. Mostly.  
  
Well, it would be fun for a while, even though it got frustrating because he tended to lose focus and forget to finish me off. I felt too dirty to make myself come in front of him, even though he probably wouldn’t have noticed or cared, so I’d have to go off to the bathroom and sit there staring at the cracks in the tiles or, let’s admit it, thinking about Andrei, Andrei who’s dead because of me, god I am fucked up.  
  
Sometimes I thought about Luka and that was funny, because he was right out there, but it was a different Luka I was thinking about, an imaginary one who was sober and would set me on his lap and say my name and let me kiss him on the mouth. Real Luka never kissed me above the shoulder. He never wanted to have sex until he was high. He never touched me unless we were having sex.  
  
But it’s not like that with Marsh. He’s sober, almost frighteningly attentive, lavishes me with kisses, leaves me weak and sleepy-eyed and glowing. He likes to lie all tangled up together and talk with me.  
  
I guess there were similarities between these two situations, though. Lounging on or near the floor, at his place, with food and drinks he bought, watching something on a screen. Substance use, if you count the wine, although Marsh didn’t have much. And then, of course, him getting handsy.  
  
But Luka didn’t do anything Marsh didn’t do. In both cases it’s all fine, everyone’s willing, I expect it, no one’s being hurt or forced to do anything.  
  
But somehow the memory of Luka feels cheap and gross and tawdry, even though at the time it was the highlight of my week, Saturday morning cartoons: the grownup version. It felt so lighthearted then, so easy after Andrei’s crushing hot kisses and berserk rages. But I think now I was just trying to get numb. I don’t want to feel numb with Marsh, even if I don’t like how he makes me feel too much. I just want to be able to turn my feelings on and off like a light switch. Maybe adjust the volume. Too bad it doesn’t work that way.  
  
I chew at the memory, the feelings. Why would I need to run into the bathroom, just because this situation reminded me of some sex I used to have that was impersonal, not that satisfying, maybe a bit sketchy if you think about it but not really any sketchier than the rest of my life, I mean come on. Luka was so much gentler than what I was used to. He never hit me, or shouted at me, or called me names, even joking names. Well, he did call me _bratan_ , bro, but that’s not an insult. It was just part of the fiction, if it even was fiction for him. He wanted a buddy to come over and hang out with him while he partied, keep him company, be around to call the doctor in case something happened. He always took a lot more than I did, but he was a responsible junkie, just a weekend partier. It was just coincidence that he and his bro always ended up sprawled in a sweaty pile on the rug among the half-empty takeout cartons.  
  
Except it wasn’t coincidence. I mean, who am I kidding? Sure, he wouldn’t have forced me if I’d said no, but would he have continued to invite me over if I said no twice in a row? Why feed me expensive takeout from the sit-down kind of restaurant and give me good drugs for free when it was very clear that we had no emotional connection and no common interests? If I was his friend, why wasn’t I allowed to meet his other friends, or his family? Because I wasn’t his friend. I was his whore. His cheap, dumb little whore who was too stupid to hold out for real money, too stupid even to know he was a whore.  
  
_Fuck_. I close my eyes, hold my head, rock back and forth a little. I wanted him to hold me, to heal the tender bruised places Andrei hurt, to let me know that I was more than a convenience or a secret shame. He gave me food, but I felt starved. I wanted tenderness, and he gave me drugs.  
  
I never even asked him for those things, because asking is unthinkable. Needing those things is almost unthinkable. He didn’t know about Andrei, he didn’t know about my life, he could probably tell how hungry I was but not how desperate for touch. Although—I remember that once I tried to lean on him and he pushed me away; we were still sitting on the sofa, and he hadn’t taken any pills yet. It was an absent-minded but authoritative push, the kind you might use to bat aside a sticky toddler fist making its hundredth grab for your hair. I didn’t try again after that.  
  
Ugh. Well, Marsh isn’t giving me drugs, unless you count the wine. He is feeding me, but it’s only this one time, and I would have had sex with him anyway—have had sex with him anyway. _You would have had sex with Luka anyway too_ , a second part of my mind points out, but the first part retorts that I don’t take anything from Marsh when I leave, and he works at least as hard to please me as I do to please him. And we’re going to get paid the same amount when we get to base. Maybe I’ll feed _him_ next time. That’s a nice thought.  
  
But I’m still confused, because our relationship _is_ a transaction, just a different kind. He makes me feel good, I make him feel good. We exchange like for like. It’s like we’re secreting drugs for each other and taking them through our skin. Sometimes we make each other feel bad, or feel too much, but that’s like a bad trip—a risk you take.  
  
But it’s an equal exchange. No one’s buying anyone. And I think he actually likes me. He’s affectionate even though he’s always sober, and he doesn’t want to hide me. Guilt stabs through me. It’s me who’s making Marsh hide, me who insists that this isn’t serious. But—  
  
I open the door and stick my head out. “Marsh.”  
  
“Yes?” He’s got the laptop on his lap, but he looks up anxiously at the sound of my voice.  
  
“Would you—” I realize that he can’t hear my usual whisper at that distance and make a heroic effort to speak louder. “Would you still want to meet me if I didn’t have sex with you?”  
  
He blinks, obviously floored. “You don’t want to have sex?”  
  
“I didn’t say that.”  
  
“Well…yes. I like you. I mean, I can’t pretend it wouldn’t be hard to stop now that we’ve started, but of course, if you need to stop for some reason, I could do that. We could just hang out instead, or…whatever you want.”  
  
I nod, unable to speak, and duck back inside. Who knows if he really means it, or if he would get tired of it, but that is something at least. Right? I wash my face just because it feels nice, not because there’s anything to wash off of it, certainly no hot tears or burning feeling in the skin. Then I take a deep breath and go back outside.  
  
Marsh looks up again and sets the laptop aside. He smiles nervously. “Hi.”  
  
I flash him a tiny smile and shuffle over to him, folding myself down onto his lap and burying my face in his shoulder.  
  
I feel his arms lifting to go around me, but they stop halfway. “Can I hug you?”  
  
“Mm hmm,” I mumble, and suddenly burst into tears because I’ve just done to him what Luka did to me. He hesitantly wraps his arms around me and I burrow into him and sob, “You can hug me, it’s okay, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”  
  
“Oh sweetheart, you don’t have to be sorry. You didn’t do anything wrong.”  
  
“Yes I did!” I choke out. “Yes I did.”  
  
“Well—what was it?”  
  
“I made you think you couldn’t touch me,” I mumble.  
  
He pauses. “I’m not sure what you mean. I just thought I should be extra careful right now.”  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
“It’s okay, baby. It’s okay.” He strokes my hair. “And it’s okay if you don’t want me to touch you. It’s not something you’d have to be sorry for. I want you to be happy and if my touching you is making you unhappy I want to stop.”  
  
I try to tell him it isn’t making me unhappy, but all that comes out is a horrible choking sob that shakes my whole body, and then another, god I’m so ridiculous, he must think I’m so stupid. I’m clinging to him and making ugly noises, and his hands are so warm on my back and in my hair, and I don’t deserve this, I don’t deserve him at all. I’m hiding him away and denying him love and using him for sex and not even giving him anything in return.  
  
“I’m sorry, this is stupid,” I finally manage.  
  
“No sweetheart, I’m sure it isn’t. If it upset you that much, it isn’t stupid.”  
  
I take his face in my hands and kiss him fiercely, over and over. I pull his head down to whisper in his ear, “I like you,” and then bury my face in his shoulder again.  
  
Marsh pulls me so close, it’s almost crushing. “I like you too,” he whispers back. “I like you so much.”  
  
I’m shivering because I’m scared. I don’t know what to do. I just told him outright. Now he can use it. But he told me, too. He told me. That means he doesn’t want to use it. Right? I think. I don’t know. This is harder than trying to touch Him and getting pushed away. I don’t know what to do if no one’s pushing me away. Finally I say, “Let’s watch the movie again.”  
  
“All right.” He kisses the top of my head and lets me go to pick up the laptop, and I roll off his lap. He sets it up on the chair again, then looks back at me. “How, um…how do you want to sit?”  
  
“I—I don’t want to sit with my back to you. It’s not your fault. It’s just—something else. S-sorry.”  
  
He nods as if he expected that. “We could…sit next to each other? Or lie next to each other?”  
  
I think. That’s how Luka and I always started out. We never cuddled like Marsh and I were doing. I shake my head.  
  
“Do you want me to sit with my back to you?” he offers.  
  
“I don’t know. Would that work? You’re so tall.”  
  
“You could sit on the pillows?”  
  
“Hmm.”  
  
“But the basic idea is good, though, right? You’d feel comfortable if I were in front of you?”  
  
“I think so.”  
  
“Do you want to try it?”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
I jump up and drag down the pillows, and he suggests using a blanket too, folded up. I sit on them, sinking in, and it feels ridiculous and precarious. Marsh settles down in front of me, between my legs. I lean forward and rest my chin on his shoulder, but it doesn’t come all the way up so I have to rest it on his back. He shifts position so that he’s lower, and now my chin fits better. “Are you comfortable like that?” I ask suspiciously.  
  
“Uh…sort of?”  
  
“Ugh, this isn’t working. Maybe we should just sit side by side.”  
  
“I thought you didn’t want to.”  
  
“I don’t, but…ugh, it’s stupid. You’re not him.”  
  
“Who?”  
  
“Nobody. Some jerk.”  
  
Marsh thinks. “What if I lie down on my stomach and you lie on my back? I know that sounds a little weird, but it might be more stable.”  
  
“You _are_ weird. But okay.” We rearrange ourselves again, this time with the laptop on the head of the mattress and Marsh stretched out across it on his belly, chin propped on his crossed forearms. My mouth starts to water as I look down at the rounded muscles of his ass and calves and shoulders and back. I guess I’m feeling better. But…“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” I ask, hovering over him. “It feels kind of…umm….”  
  
“Sexual?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Oh no, the horror, anything but that.” We both laugh, me a little nervously. “But seriously, it’s okay. I trust you. I know you won’t do anything to hurt me.”  
  
My vision swims again. I stroke his shoulder blade before carefully settling down on top of him. He hands me a pillow to put on his back, under my chin. It’s still a little awkward, but it feels a lot more secure, and a lot nicer, and um, a lot sexier. I’m getting wicked thoughts from being behind him, on top of him: ways I’d like to touch him, things I’d like to whisper in his ear, things I’d like to put in his mouth, positions I’d like to put him into. Does this mean people become tops or bottoms because of their size? Does having someone sit in your lap always lead to thoughts about doing things to them? Does sitting in someone’s lap always lead to thoughts of what you’d like them to do to you? I don’t know. I wonder.  
  
“I can see why you started touching me,” I say after a moment. “It’s very tempting.”  
  
“Well, feel free.” He turns his head back to grin at me, and I smile back in spite of myself and ruffle his hair. “I like it when you touch me.”  
  
“I like touching you,” I whisper. I run my fingers lightly along the sides of his arms, then pull back. I don’t know how far I should go, so maybe I shouldn’t go any farther.  
  
“Do you want me to start the movie again?” he asks after a moment.  
  
“Okay.”  
  
It gets easier to concentrate after the travel scene is over, and as it turns out I need my hands to prop up my head so my neck doesn’t ache too much. But my body is still aware of his body, still feeling him warm and firm under me, my lips and loins and palms and nipples all pulsing with growing desire. By the time the movie is over, I’ve had to (embarrassingly) shift position to adjust myself so that my erection fits into the hollow between the muscles around his spine. It’s almost, but not quite, in the cleft of his ass. I think. Oh god, don’t think about that. Don’t think about pulling him up onto his knees, and pulling down his pants, and—  
  
“So what did you think?”  
  
“Hmm?” I blink.  
  
“The movie?” He’s teasing me, I know it.  
  
“Oh. Yes. Um. Uh. It was interesting. What did you think?”  
  
“I was sad that they left out the Batriders, but I thought it was a good adaptation otherwise.”  
  
“Maybe they thought people would be scared by bat faces.” _I’d like to ride you. All through the night._  
  
“Hey, a lot of bats are cute! Maybe they just didn’t want to film all those night scenes.”  
  
“Maybe.” I pull the pillow out from under my head and drop it to the side so I can rub my face against the back of Marsh’s neck. _Let’s film a night scene. Well, minus the film._  
  
Marsh sighs happily and snags the pillow, tucking it under his own head and relaxing with his face to the side. He looks back at me, dark eyes glinting with mischief. “There were some pretty exciting parts, don’t you think?”  
  
_Are you talking about yourself or the movie?_ Cheeky bastard. “Is that what you thought?” I ask severely, nipping at his ear.  
  
He inhales and closes his eyes for a moment. “I thought you might agree with me.”  
  
“And why is that?” I take hold of his shoulder and begin to knead it.  
  
“Oh! Mmmh. Well, I just felt a certain, uh…”  
  
“You’re looking for a pun, aren’t you?” I narrow my eyes, even though he can’t see it.  
  
“Maybe.”  
  
“Well, it’s too late. You missed your chance.”  
  
“My, you’re strict. I think I made my point though. Ow! You are brutal.”  
  
“You don’t like it?”  
  
“Mmh, I didn’t say that. I might like it even more if you moved down a bit, though.”  
  
I shift the heels of my hands further down onto his back.  
  
“That is nice, but I was thinking, um, of _all_ of you.”  
  
Ooh. “Is that so?”  
  
“Mm hmm.”  
  
I walk my hands down his back step by step, leaning hard on them until I’m half reared-up like a snake, and then scoot my lower half back. How provocative should I be? Fuck it, he basically just asked me to put it right there. Not that I can tell exactly where “there” is when we have our clothes on, but I can guess. God, I don’t trust myself. All I can think about is his ass, rounded and naked and pushed up in the air, muscular legs spread, wide open and showing me his— _stop it_. I want to— _stop it._  
  
I’m not supposed to want to do this. He’s not supposed to want this. He’s so big and strong and I’m the small one, the delicate one with a curtain of hair brushing my cheek, the one who’s supposed to bend over and get fucked. All my life that’s what I’ve done, even when I was in charge. Was that what I really wanted?  
  
I scramble up into a sitting position, sitting on his thighs, running my hands along his lower back to keep them from shaking. “Marsh,” I whisper, trying to keep my voice from shaking too, and not entirely succeeding. “What do you want me to do?”  
  
He turns his head back to look at me. “What do you want to do?”  
  
It’s hard to breathe. “I want to…do bad things.”  
  
“Are you sure they’re bad?”  
  
“I—I don’t know.” I take a deep breath. “I don’t know why I’m like this now.”  
  
“Like what?”  
  
“You know. Uh. Confused and…wantingtofuckyou,” I mumble as fast as possible.  
  
“Oh sweetheart, that’s not bad.”  
  
I move my hand along the curve of his hip, then inward to cup the roundness at the underside of his ass. _But it’s—I want to—_  
  
“Have you, um, ever done that before?”  
  
I shake my head, then launch myself off to curl up on the mattress beside him. He reaches out, and I give up and let him enfold me in his arms.  
  
Marsh kisses my nose and rests his forehead against mine. “I…have never actually had that done to me either. So we’re both starting from scratch that way, I guess.”  
  
“Do you…want to?”  
  
His eyes drop. “Umm. Yeah. After the…breakup, I got drunk and went home with a guy and he, uh, used one of his fingers. I really liked that. And I’m curious about what it feels like for you when I do it. And, umm, I just…” he blushes. “I just like the idea. But I’m a little nervous about actually doing it.”  
  
_You should be_ , I almost say. _I’m a terrible person and I want to treat you like dirt. I want to grab you and talk down to you and use your body and make you like it_. Instead, I tilt my head and kiss him gently on the mouth.  
  
His hand spreads warm across my back. “Why did you think it was bad?”  
  
I shrivel up, hide my face in his shoulder again. _How fucking dominant_. “I don’t—I don’t know.”  
  
“Is it bad when I do it to you?”  
  
“No!” I uncurl. “I just…might want to be meaner than you are.”  
  
“ _Oh._ ” His voice is deeper. “I might like that.”  
  
“You wouldn’t like it like that your first time.”  
  
“Hey, don’t tell me what I like! But yeah, you’re probably right. Although…I don’t know. You could probably act mean without actually hurting me, right?”  
  
“If I’d done it before. But I think for the first time it might be hard to do that and also concentrate on getting it right. Physically.”  
  
“That makes sense.”  
  
“It’s so confusing. I want to be cruel to you but I’m afraid of hurting you.”  
  
“I feel like that sometimes with you. But you seem pretty tough. You always want me to be rougher.”  
  
I might be blushing this time. “Well, you know.”  
  
Marsh nuzzles my jaw. “You know, you’ve already been cruel to me and you didn’t hurt me. That first time, for example.”  
  
“Oh, did you like that?”  
  
“I might have. A little.”  
  
I push him over on his back and hover over him. “You are such a pervert. I remember how you grabbed the ladder. Were you pretending you were tied up?”  
  
“Would I do something like that?”  
  
“You know you would.” I run my hands over his chest, and he lets out a deep sigh. “Especially if I tell you to.”  
  
“Are you gonna tell me to?”  
  
“Yes. Hands behind your back.”  
  
Marsh wriggles under me, obeying. I note with approval that he tucks his arms all the way under instead of just hiding his hands. It pushes his chest up, makes him look more provocative and vulnerable.  
  
“Good boy.” I roll his nipple idly between my fingers, and his hips jerk up. “Do you like it when I call you a good boy?”  
  
“It’s a little patronizing—“  
  
I give it a sharp twist.  
  
“Fuck,” he breathes, and I slap him lightly on the cheek.  
  
“Language.”  
  
He licks his lips. “Sorry.”  
  
“Now answer my question. Do you like it?” I pinch his nipple slowly, with increasing pressure.  
  
“Nnnngh. Yes. _Yes_.” His back arches.  
  
“Good boy.” I lean forward to kiss him, lightly, teasingly, slipping further away and making him strain upward to follow my lips. “I’m trusting you to be good. That’s why you’re not really tied up.” Well, that and I have nothing to tie him up with. What is there on this ship that would be good for that? And how the fuck do I do it? I’m going to have to do some research.  
  
He closes his eyes. “Thank you.”  
  
I take his jaw firmly in my hand and kiss him again, a deep and lingering kiss that leaves us both panting. I tilt his face back to lick and nip at his throat, and Marsh makes a noise that’s almost like a protest. “What is it?” I whisper.  
  
Marsh whines, if you can call it whining when it’s pitched that low.  
  
“Use your words.”  
  
“I don’t have any.”  
  
“Poor baby. You’re so excited already, and I haven’t even done much of anything to you.”  
  
“Please.”  
  
I smile. “Please what?”  
  
“Please…do something to me.”  
  
I kiss his nose.  
  
He looks even more pained, if that is possible. “Um, that was nice, but…I was thinking of something more, you know…”  
  
“You’re awfully demanding.”  
  
“Says _you_.”  
  
I mock gasp. “You just lost your good boy status.”  
  
Marsh looks up at me demurely. “Oh no. What is going to happen to me?”  
  
I rub the pad of my thumb slowly over his lips, and he moans and sucks it eagerly, the rough side of his tongue rubbing the underside all the way down to the palm. “I should let nothing happen to you.” I don’t have the self-control for that, though.  
  
“That wun be any fun!” he says around my thumb.  
  
“That’s kind of the point.” I feed another finger into his mouth.  
  
“It wun be fuffor you,” he points out.  
  
“Clearly I need to stuff your mouth with something bigger, because you’re still talking.”  
  
“Mmmh.” Marsh arches his back again, and I rub my thigh between his legs.  
  
“Is that what you want?” I whisper. “You want to suck me off with your hands tied?”  
  
He nods and pushes his hips up to meet me. “Mmmh!”  
  
I pull my fingers out. “That’s ambitious. We’ll see how much you can fit in there.” I lean forward again for another long, deep kiss, holding him down as he writhes and moans, then force myself to pull away. I pull his shirt up to his armpits, undo his pants and yank them down. God, I just want to touch him all over. _Well guess what, you can_.  
  
“I—am not at all complaining,” he pants after a few moments. “Just a little confused.”  
  
“Just a little mouthy is what you are.”  
  
He grins. “Shut me up, then.”  
  
I give his nipple a brutal twist, wringing a gasp out of him, then crawl up higher and lean over. “I’d rather you open up.”  
  
“It would probably help if you didn’t have your pants on,” he points out.  
  
“That’s your problem, you cheeky bastard. Figure something out.”  
  
Marsh gets up on his elbows and noses around for the zipper. He gets it between his teeth and pulls it down with some difficulty. I’m impatient, so I cheat and help him by holding the waistband taut. He comes back up again to tug from one angle, then another, until he finally manages to pull the whole thing down to thigh level. I pet his hair and stroke his ear, and he turns to press his lips against my palm. I’m suddenly breathing hard again, but I yelp and laugh when he tries to pull at the waistband of my boxer briefs and the elastic makes it snap right back up. He nuzzles the bulge in front—not fair!—and I decide I don’t give a shit about making him do it himself, I just want his mouth on me now. I yank them down and twist my fingers through his hair, pulling his head forward.  
  
Marsh lets out a deep sigh, and then I feel his tongue, oh god. He’s licking gently but firmly, very seriously and slowly moving up the underside from base to tip.  
  
“Marsh,” I moan without thinking, and he takes me in his mouth, fuck yeah, oh god, I’m looking down at him and maybe I shouldn’t because I might come too soon, he looks the way I feel, excited about what he has but desperate for more. He makes a deep vulnerable sound that travels all the way up to my pelvis, and I push his head back down onto the pillow so I can kneel over him and thrust into his mouth. He’s working hard to take me in without scraping, and he chokes a little at first because we’re both so eager. I pull back and wait until he moves his head forward, let him take my cock deeper than before. I want as much of his mouth as possible so I stay in as far as I can, pushing with shallow fast little thrusts. Then I change my mind and go slow and deep, to show him who’s boss. It scrapes a little at first but he adjusts, he’s moaning around me.  
  
I can’t keep quiet either, although I use Russian so I can say whatever I want without feeling self-conscious. “Mmmh! Marsh, it feels—so good. Fucking your mouth—aah! You’re such a bad, bad sexy boy. You deserve this. You deserve to get fucked in all your holes, even the little ones.” I slip one fingertip into his ear and move it in slowly and out. “I want to pound you hard and—”  
  
He groans and closes his eyes, and I hear a wet noise behind me and turn to look. “You ARE bad!” I’m back in English now. “Stop that right now! Hands above your head!”  
  
Marsh looks only very slightly guilty as he extracts his other arm from behind his back and brings both hands up behind his head, propping it up further. Mostly he looks smug. Does he like it when I yell at him? He probably does, that sick fuck.  
  
I slap his face, and he makes a little surprised sound. “You get off when I say you get off, not before. This is not a train.”  
  
He cracks up.  
  
“Oh, you think that’s funny?”  
  
“Aww awwwooow,” he explains with his mouth full.  
  
I pull out. “What?”  
  
He licks his lips, still laughing. “All aboard the sex train!”  
  
“You think that’s funny? I’ll show you funny!” I’m trying really hard not to laugh and I’m probably coming off like a cartoon villain.  
  
“I’m just—seeing you as a…hahaha—sexy train conductor….what would you wear? Something with a bare midriff? Hot pants? Choo choo!” He mimes repeatedly pulling on the string to the train whistle, but with his fingers around something the size of a dick.  
  
I give up and collapse back down on top of him, fitting our bodies together. “Marsh I am trying _so hard_ here, must you ruin my whole thing?”  
  
“Sorry!” He arranges his face into a contrite expression, but I glare at him and it dissolves. “Well, I’m a little sorry.”  
  
I pet his face where I slapped him. “What am I going to do with you?”  
  
“I don’t know. I’m awful. I told you to be mean and then I messed it up. I’m sorry about being awful, I really am.” He seems sincere this time.  
  
“Did you…do it because you wanted me to stop? You can—you can just say stop, you know.”  
  
“I don’t know. It just happened.” He thinks. “Maybe it _was_ kind of—overwhelming.”  
  
I roll off him and curl into a ball before I realize what I’m doing. “Oh my god I’m sorry I’m sorry—“  
  
His arm is around me, his hand stroking my back. He’s talking to me, making reassuring noises, but I can’t understand the words, they just slide over me.  
  
“I’m sorry,” I keep hearing myself saying, and it’s like someone else is saying it, I don’t have any control over it. If I don’t have control over this, how am I going to control myself when I’m topping him? Maybe I just shouldn’t ever.  
  
He kisses the back of my head and rubs my back and shoulder, whispering to me in that low caressing voice, and after a while I begin to understand the words again. I struggle to turn around and wrap myself around him, nestle my head into the hollow of his shoulder, cling like he might float away into space if I don’t keep hold of him. He might, you never know.  
  
“Oh baby, darling, carido, it’s all right. It’s all right.”  
  
I’m tempted to pretend to be more upset than I am, it’s so nice to be petted and called these sweet things, so shamefully and humiliatingly and seductively nice that I start to cry again. Fuck, I hate this. I hate feelings. Maybe he won’t notice if I stay quiet and don’t—oh damn it my nose is running. I have to get up to go blow my nose, pulling up my pants hurriedly and muttering something about being just a minute. I almost wish he’ll be gone by the time I get back because this is so embarrassing, but it’s his room, why would he do that. Maybe I should just go.  
  
Marsh is still there, of course, lying on his side, face propped up on his hand, pants back up and shirt back down. I can’t believe what I was doing to his face a few minutes ago. I can’t believe I had the nerve. I’m horrible, I’m out of control. I should be thrown in the brig.  
  
He smiles at me, a little tentatively. I look away and get down on the mattress with him. He rests his head on the pillow again and I curl around him with my face pressed to his chest, petting him because he deserves petting too, so much more than I do. I want to say sorry again but I’m so exhausted, and he’s probably tired of hearing it. I want him to call me baby again, I’m so greedy and horrible. Why can’t I ever be satisfied with what I have? Fuck, I’m crying again.  
  
‘I’m sorry,” I babble. “I’msorryI’mruiningeverything—”  
  
“Oh baby, it’s okay, you don’t have to be sorry. I’m sorry I did whatever I did that…set this off for you.”  
  
“You were just being nice,” I wail. God, I’m not even drunk this time.  
  
“I was trying to be,” he says, kissing the top of my head. “I get the feeling that people haven’t been nice to you a lot.”  
  
I think about Yelena and draw a long, shaky breath, fighting down the urge to scream.    
  
“Skala?”  
  
“Sorry, I was thinking. Again. I shouldn’t do that, it’s stupid.” I give a shaky, stupid little laugh.  
  
He rubs the back of my neck, digging in deep and making things click. “I think you were joking.”  
  
“Probably,” I reply absently, because the neck rub is all I can think about while it’s happening. “Left a little? Mmmh.”  
  
His hands probe and knead and strum, moving down from my neck to my shoulders and back, and I finally start to uncoil and relax. I climb on top of him and tuck my head into the hollow of his shoulder again, because I want him to get at more of me. So greedy, but I don’t care, I just want it. I should be giving him the backrub, he’s so nice to me, buying me things and putting up with all of my shit and not even complaining that we haven’t finished having sex yet. I’m thinking these things, but there’s no dripping acid behind them anymore. I just feel sleepy.  
  
There’s another feeling that I don’t want to name, a kind of opening feeling. I’m some kind of sea creature that’s closed up like a little rock, and slowly it opens and the fronds or tentacles creep out to find food and send messages. I’m sending him messages with my body or maybe my mind, is he getting them? I don’t know. I don’t even know what they are. But I want to get closer to him, so close, I want to grab him with my tentacles and never let him go.  
  
I’m going to be scared once I wake up all the way, I know it. I’m going to grab him and push him away and grab him and push him away, and he’ll get tired of it sooner or later and take the choice away from me and I’ll be free to float cold and alone in space, this is morbid, self, just let him give you a fucking backrub and don’t overanalyze. Don’t fuck it up like you always do. God that feels nice. He’s still strumming at all my sinews, pulling and shifting and rearranging me bit by bit. It should be terrifying but I love it. It hurts in all the best ways. I’m so sleepy too, I don’t know why. Crying is tiring I guess.  
  
I feel his voice deep in his chest almost before I hear it. “So…would it be okay to ask what was it I did that upset you? I don’t want to pry if you don’t want to talk about it, I just don’t want to do it again and I’m not sure what it was that was different this time.”  
  
“Mmh, you dint do anything wrong.”  
  
“But I must have at least reminded you of something bad, right?”  
  
I drag air into my lungs, try to drag awareness into my brain. “Mmmh, yeah. So uh…” I yawn. “Movie at your place. Plus floor. Plus you bought me stuff.”  
  
“Floor?”  
  
“Well, mattress is close to the floor.”  
  
“Okay…”  
  
Even through my haze of exhaustion I can tell he’s trying to put these things together in a way that add up to something bad. I yawn again. “Not intrinsically bad. Just reminded me of something.”  
  
“Okay, sweetie. I’m sorry.”  
  
“No.” I tap his chest, then stroke it. “Wasn’t even anything bad. I know you think it’s something horrible, but s’not. Just sad. And stupid. I didn’t even know it was sad until now.”  
  
He kisses my forehead.  
  
“But maybe don’t buy me things again.”  
  
“I’m sorry. I wish I’d known.”  
  
“I didn’t know. Sorry too. Know you were just trying to be nice.”  
  
“What—what is it about buying you things that’s bad?”  
  
His fingers on my shoulder blade are so sleepy-sweet that I don’t even think before answering. “It’s like you’re buying me. And then I can’t be a person anymore, I’m just something you own.”  
  
“My god.”  
  
“Or I have to pay you back somehow. I dunno. Something like that.”  
  
“Oh baby, it really doesn’t work like that.”  
  
“Yes it does. I have to pay you back for every time you say baby.” I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore.  
  
“Does that mean you like it?” I can hear the mischief in his voice.  
  
“NO.” I try to smack his chest but my hand just flops down limply. “Why would you say that. So cheesy. Sentimental.”  
  
“I think you liiiiike it. Baby.”  
  
“Well not when you say it like _that_.”  
  
“Aha, so you do like it the other times?”  
  
“Watch out. Remember I stab people.” I yawn and curl up.  
  
“You are so fearsome. A fearsome little kitten.”  
  
I curl my fingers into claws and scratch halfheartedly at his chest.  
  
“Baby,” he whispers, smoothing the hair at the back of my neck. “Sweetest baby. Darling. Carido da mi corson. Mi amado. Baby, baby, baby.”  
  
_Disgusting_ , says a waning voice within my mind, but I ignore it. I wouldn’t mind being his if he treats me this well. I might like it, a lot. I make one more little noise, it could be protest or pleasure or both, I don’t even know. But then I sink down into his voice, his warm deep voice that blankets me in all that dark sweetness, and I let go of everything that holds me awake and just fall.

**Author's Note:**

> I know this is not an especially fun story, but it popped out of my subconscious (I really thought I was writing a random sex scene until Deimos suddenly jumped up and locked himself in the bathroom, and I had to figure out along with him what was going on) and I realized it was important to me to talk about how unpleasant but banal ongoing situations can be just as damaging in the long term as dramatic obvious trauma. A lot of people process emotional pain as annoyance or frustration, especially when someone's hurting them and they can't realistically stop that person's behavior.
> 
> Re: “carido” and the other fishy-sounding vaguely Romance language stuff: I have a headcanon that a lot of Catholics from all over the world went to Colony Three (where my version of Praxis is from) and mingled with each other, since their religion had become more important to them than their race or nationality, presumably because they felt that Catholicism was under attack or at least on the decline. They all spoke different languages, and a pidgin developed, composed mostly of Spanish, English, Portuguese, Swahili, and Russian, with some influence from a few other languages. It became a creole (called, unimaginatively, Tria) once the next generation spoke it as their first language. 
> 
> Tria is Praxis’ first language, but English is also his first language because the schools in Three teach only in English, and if you have any kind of aspirations to “decency” (read, middle-class status) you speak English around your kids often enough that they become fluent, so that they don’t have trouble once they go to school. A lot of people handle this by using English in situations that require formality or discipline or intellectual effort—anything that reminds them of school or church—so certain associations form, and you’ll often hear moms chattering away in Tria and then suddenly shouting at their kids in English. I decided that a lot of Praxis’ awkward formality in canon comes from the fact that he’s speaking English (some is because he’s speaking to Abel, his unattainable and saintly crush). 
> 
> “Carido” is roughly equivalent to the Spanish “querido” (beloved, dear); “corson” = “corazon” (heart); “amado” is Portuguese for “sweetheart.” Tria tends to simplify a lot of spelling and pronunciation; it also slurs many Spanish “e”s into “a”s, and although this doesn’t much change the pronunciation, in writing it turns the Spanish “qu” into a “c” and the Spanish “z” into an “s”. With words of Russian and Swahili origin, it tends to insert vowels into consonant clusters, so “kvartira” (Russian for apartment) would become “cavatira” and “msichana” (Swahili for girl) would become “misichana.”


End file.
